Operating Systems:
Internals and Design Principles, 6/E
William Stallings
Chapter 6
Concurrency: Deadlock and
Starvation
Patricia Roy
Manatee Community College, Venice, FL
©2008, Prentice Hall
Dining Philosophers Problem
Dining Philosophers Problem
Dining Philosophers Problem
Dining Philosophers Problem
Dining Philosophers Problem
Dining Philosophers Problem
Deadlock
• Permanent blocking of a set of processes
that either compete for system resources
or communicate with each other
• No efficient solution
– prevention, avoidance, detection
• Involve conflicting needs for resources by
two or more processes
Two Resource Types
• Reusable resources
• Consumable resources
Reusable Resources
• Used by only one process at a time and
not depleted by that use
• Processes obtain resources that they later
release for reuse by other processes
Reusable Resources
• Processors, I/O channels, main and
secondary memory, devices, and data
structures such as files and databases
• Deadlock occurs if each process holds
one resource and requests the other
Reusable Resources
• Space is available for allocation of
200Kbytes, and the following sequence of
events occur
P1
P2
...
...
Request 80 Kbytes;
Request 70 Kbytes;
Request 60 Kbytes;
Request 80 Kbytes;
...
...
• Deadlock occurs if both processes
progress to their second request
Consumable Resources
• Created (produced) and destroyed
(consumed)
• Interrupts, signals, messages, and
information in I/O buffers
Example of Deadlock
• Deadlock occurs if receive is blocking
P1
P2
...
...
Receive(P2);
Receive(P1);
...
...
Send(P2, M1);
Send(P1, M2);
Deadlock
Deadlock
Conditions for Deadlock
• Mutual exclusion
– Only one process may use a resource at a
time
• Hold-and-wait
– A process may hold allocated resources while
awaiting assignment of others
Conditions for Deadlock
• No preemption
– No resource can be forcibly removed from a
process holding it
• Circular wait
– A closed chain of processes exists, such that
each process holds at least one resource
needed by the next process in the chain
Resource Allocation Graphs
• Directed graph that depicts a state of the
system of resources and processes
Resource Allocation Graphs
Resource Allocation Graph for
Figure 6.1 (b)
Resource Allocation Graph for
Figure 6.1 (b)
Possibility of Deadlock
• Mutual Exclusion
• No preemption
• Hold and wait
Existence of Deadlock
•
•
•
•
Mutual Exclusion
No preemption
Hold and wait
Circular wait
• So, how to prevent deadlock?
Deadlock Prevention
• Mutual Exclusion
– Must be supported by the OS
• Hold and Wait
– Require a process request all of its required
resources at one time
Deadlock Prevention
• No Preemption
– OS may preempt a process to require it to
release its resources, the process must
release resource and request again
• Circular Wait
– Define a linear ordering of resource types
• Deadlock prevention disadvantages
– Conservative: undercommits resources
Deadlock Avoidance
• A decision is made dynamically on
whether the current resource allocation
request will, if granted, potentially lead to a
deadlock
• Requires knowledge of future process
requests
Two Approaches to
Deadlock Avoidance
• Do not start a process
if its demands might
lead to deadlock
– Start a process only if
the maximum resource
claim of all current
processes plus those
of the new process
can be met.
– Too pessimistic!
Two Approaches to
Deadlock Avoidance
• Do not start a process if its demands might
lead to deadlock
– Too pessimistic!
• Do not grant an incremental resource
request to a process if this allocation might
lead to deadlock
Resource Allocation Denial
• Referred to as the banker’s algorithm
• State of the system is the current
allocation of resources to process
• Safe state is where there is at least one
sequence that does not result in deadlock
• Otherwise, it is an unsafe state
Determination of a Safe State
Determination of a Safe State
Determination of a Safe State
Determination of a Safe State
Safe to Grant P1’s Request?
• P1 requests one unit each of R1 and R3
Safe to Grant P1’s Request?
Determination of an Unsafe
State
Deadlock Avoidance Logic
Deadlock Avoidance Logic
In-Class Exercise
• Prob 6.15: consider a system consisting of
four processes and a single resource. The
current state of the claim and allocation
matrices are
– C = [3, 2, 9, 7]T
– A = [1, 1, 3, 2]T
What is the minimum number of units of
the resource needed to be available for
this state to be safe?
C = [3, 2, 9, 7]T
A = [1, 1, 3, 2]T
V = [?]
C = [3, 2, 9, 7]T
A = [1, 1, 3, 2]T
R = [7] V = [0]
X Cannot make progress on any process!  need at least 1
extra instance of resource
C = [3, 2, 9, 7]T
A = [1, 1, 3, 2]T
R = [8] V = [1]
Finish P2:
C = [3, 2, 9, 7]T
A = [1, 0, 3, 2]T
V = [2]
Finish P1:
C = [3, 2, 9, 7]T
A = [0, 0, 3, 2]T
V = [3]
X Cannot make progress on any process!
 need at least 2 extra instances of resource
C = [3, 2, 9, 7]T
A = [0, 0, 3, 2]T
R = [10] V = [5]
Finish P4:
C = [3, 2, 9, 7]T
A = [0, 0, 3, 0]T
V = [7]
Finish P3:
C = [3, 2, 9, 7]T
A = [0, 0, 0, 0]T
V = [10]
Deadlock Avoidance
• Maximum resource requirement must be stated
in advance
• Processes under consideration must be
independent; their execution order must be
unconstrained by any synchronization
requirements
• There must be a fixed number of resources to
allocate
• No process may exit while holding resources
Deadlock Detection
Available vector
Deadlock Detection Algorithm
1. Mark each process that has a row in the
allocation matrix of all zeros
2. Initialize a temporary vector W to equal to
available vector
Deadlock Detection Algorithm
3. Find an index i such that process i is
currently unmarked and the ith row of
request matrix is less than or equal to W.
If no such row is found, terminate the
algorithm and all unmarked processes
are those involved in the deadlock.
4. If such a row is found, mark process i and
add the corresponding row of the
allocation matrix to W.
Strategies Once Deadlock
Detected
• Abort all deadlocked processes
• Back up each deadlocked process to
some previously defined checkpoint, and
restart all processes
– Original deadlock may occur
Strategies Once Deadlock
Detected
• Successively abort deadlocked processes
until deadlock no longer exists
• Successively preempt resources until
deadlock no longer exists
Advantages and Disadvantages
In-Class Exercises
• Probs. 6.5, 6.6, 6.7, 6.8